


Aristocracy and Dragons and Werewolves, Oh My!

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Discworld - Pratchett
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-24
Updated: 2003-07-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 19:46:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sybil/Angua femmeslash. I'm not very happy with it as past feedback said it was far too OOC, but I wanted to put it up anyway for the sake of completeness (besides, if I keep culling fics I've taken against for one reason or another, this page will end up empty).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aristocracy and Dragons and Werewolves, Oh My!

**Author's Note:**

> Discworld characters belong to Terry Pratchett.

There's a bar in Ankh-Morpork that certain people don't know about. Everyone knows the Bucket, and if they are avoiding trouble they keep out of it; off duty or not, the members of the Watch who drink there are still dangerous (if hindered by inebriation, more often than not). Everyone knows the Mended Drum on Filigree Street, especially if they know Carrot, who still mutters about what happened there, early on during his time in the city.

Most people who know about the Troll's Head avoid that too, especially the trolls.

But not many people know about a certain establishment known simply as _Thee Lady's Bar_. Spelling and punctuation aside, it is a _nice_ bar. Run by a woman who intends to correct the sign someday soon, as soon as she can match the shade of paint, Estelle Griggs. She serves _nice_ drinks to _nice_ ladies. If Nobby Nobbs came within, say, ten yards of the front door, he would politely be moved on by Cal (short for Calcite), the _nice_ troll who acts as bouncer. The only reason she works the door is because the bar has a select clientele.

It is Ankh-Morpork's only bar which caters exclusively to ladies. It is a _nice_ bar, we must emphasise; none of the oiled, mostly naked men grinding about on stage that one might find in the Shades, perhaps. This is the bar where the nobles come to get away from their husbands for a few hours; this is the bar to which, when the work of the day is done and the dragons have settled down after their midnight feed, Sybil Ramkin comes, to relax, to drink, to think.

She is here tonight, although it is closing in on dawn; soon she will go home and give the dragons their morning feed, and then begin mucking out their stables again. In the afternoon she will see Samuel, if he's not too busy, or simply stretching the rule about not seeing the bride before the wedding far too far. He is nervous, she knows that; what he doesn't know is that she is nervous as well. A kind of stage fright, perhaps. Sybil isn't sure. All she knows is that when she thinks of the wedding day, so close now, her stomach feels as if one of her beloved dragons has been sick in it: not a pleasant feeling.

A brown shape noses the door open, lopes across the floor, and vanishes into the bathroom (women only, of course). Sybil raises her glass to her lips, drinks, watches the bathroom door. After a moment it swings open and Angua, pushing her hair away from her face, comes out wearing a shirt and trousers; her feet are bare as she pads across the floor. She sits down beside Sybil at the bar and orders a glass of wine, not looking at Sybil until the drink is safely in her hand.

'They expect you to drink ale all the time in the Watch.' Her gaze flits from Sybil's drink to Sybil's face. 'You're Sybil Ramkin,' she says. 'You're marrying the Captain.' She pretends not to notice Sybil's slight wince. 'I'm going to be part of the guard of honour at your wedding.' She holds out a hand; Sybil takes it gracefully. 'Lance-Constable Angua.'

'I know who you are, Delphine Angua von Überwald,' Sybil says quietly, squeezing her hand once before letting it go. 'I know your mother.'

'Oh, yes, of course,' Angua says, momentarily stunned, possibly by the rare use of her first name. 'Yes, I remember now.' In her confusion she gulps rather too much of her wine; as she splutters Sybil pulls out a handkerchief and hands it to her, a slight smile on her lips. She doesn't like to embarrass people, but Angua is difficult to fluster, and the challenge makes it interesting.

'The moon has gone down?' Sybil asks as if asking about the weather.

'Clouds.' Angua drinks the rest of the glassful rather more sedately. 'And it's rather dark in here. Estelle's very understanding.' She gestures around with her empty glass. 'And there aren't too many people.'

She is right. The two of them are the only ones at the bar: Lady Selachii is sitting alone at a table, staring at her glass of wine, and there are three other women a little further around the room, just out of sight but not out of hearing range. One of them has an obnoxious laugh that makes both Sybil and Angua wince.

'Why are you here?' Angua asks.

'Why are you?' Sybil says. 'You should have come off your shift hours ago, especially tonight.' Her lofted eyebrow indicates the window, the barely visible clouded sky outside. 'I can see it on your face. Someone or something has disappointed you. Is Ankh-Morpork not what you thought it would be?'

Angua puts down her glass. 'You're good at avoiding questions you don't want to answer, aren't you?'

'You first.' This is not Sybil's first drink of the night. 'Rejection?' Angua's lips tighten and she looks away. 'My dear, you should be aware that anything you have now is only, shall we say, puppy love. You haven't been here long enough.'

'I have,' Angua says. 'I just haven't -- he doesn't know -- I--'

Sybil raises a finger, both to hush her and to call over Estelle, who refills their glasses without needing to ask. 'Corporal Carrot?'

Angua nods.

'A good choice,' Sybil says.

Angua nods again.

'Someday, you'll be where I am, you know.' She hushes Angua again. 'Hear me out. You come from a distinguished line. Your name is well-known, if not here, then at home. If young Carrot has any sense, he'll let you make your way and follow you wherever you lead.'

'Do you really think he's the sort?'

'That depends on who's holding the leash.'

'Lady Ramkin, I respect your position, but if one more pun comes out of your mouth I may be forced to waste this drink by tipping it over your head.' Angua smiles wanly and Sybil laughs at her expression; the sound is rich and Lady Selachii looks up at them for a moment before going back to her own business.

'I suspect that I've spent too much time around my own kind,' Sybil says. 'The sort of people who think calling dwarfs 'gritsuckers' is the epitome of humour. I do beg your pardon.' But she's still smiling, and Angua waves the apology away, taking a mouthful of her wine, rolling it around her mouth before swallowing.

'The real trouble is his attitude.'

Sybil raises her (singed) eyebrows.

'Towards the undead,' Angua says.

'Oh,' says Sybil, drinking her wine. 'I see.' She puts her glass down. 'He came to my house to see Samuel.'

'So _that's_ where he went.'

'They went off together somewhere.' Sybil pauses, finishes her wine. There is a kind of pleasant haze descending over the room. 'Something about Chubby.'

Angua blinks.

'The dragon,' Sybil says. 'Although I don't think that's all. I don't like Samuel thinking he has to hide things from me.'

'I don't like Carrot being so _open_,' Angua says. 'Honesty... he's so honest, and I don't understand how he can like dwarfs and trolls and Nobby and not like the undead. We have rights, after all... and it's not as if I died and came back, like a vampire or something. I'm just me.' She looks down into her almost empty glass; Estelle breezes over and refills it without Angua needing to ask.

'That's the only thing you can be, dear; none of us can be anything more or less than what we are,' Sybil says. It's amazing how anyone can sound deep and wise after a few drinks.

Angua looks at her. 'But you -- you've got so much. You're doing something you love, you're getting _married_ \- what have I got? A tendency to excessive hairiness once a month, and a job where the only reason I'll get promoted quickly is so that Nobby's never actually responsible for anything.'

'You will find happiness,' Sybil says, so quietly that Angua can barely hear her. 'As for me, I will have my children, my heirs, and then I will go back to my dragons.'

'Is that all you want, is _heirs_?' Angua sounds slightly shocked.

'Angua, being noble... I have to have someone to carry on after me, I know you understand that. Samuel will be a good husband. I will be happy to have his children. I have put it off long enough... any longer will be too long.' Sybil waves Estelle over and asks for something a little stronger. Estelle obliges, curious gaze flitting between the two women. Across the room, Lady Selachii has risen from her chair, and bobs a nod at Sybil before exiting the bar.

Angua waits until Estelle has gone away again before saying, 'So you don't think much of childbearing?'

Sybil raises her glass, toasts her companion. 'No. Of men,' she says.

It takes Angua a moment to process this; she hasn't exactly led a sheltered life, but she still needs to blink rather rapidly and finish her glass of wine before she can say anything. 'You're-?'

Sybil nods.

'Well,' says Angua, 'it's lucky you're not a social pariah, then.' And she hugs herself for a moment.

'In a society peopled by werewolves, vampires, trolls and dwarfs, it's easy to overlook those few people who happen to prefer their own gender in bed,' Sybil says. 'Considering the dwarfs and their ways, I must say I'm not surprised at the level of acceptance... and Havelock, of course.'

'So have you-?'

Sybil nods again, and, very subtly, looks at the doorway through which Lady Selachii has just exited.

'She's married!'

'I'll be married this time next week,' Sybil says.

'Are you two -- an item?' Angua asks, still trying to master the logistics of keeping her mouth from gaping open.

'I wouldn't say that,' Sybil says. 'We agreed to stop seeing each other because of my wedding. It's hard enough hiding it from one husband, but Samuel's far too observant.'

A thousand thoughts seem to be racing across Angua's mind; Sybil sits and sips her drink and lets the younger woman think. She watches Angua twirl a strand of hair between her fingers and waits.

'I've never really thought about it before,' Angua says eventually. 'I've been too preoccupied with my own problems. And it was hard enough maintaining a relationship with a wolf... only having one week in four together was too stressful.' She looks at Sybil, emotion burning in her eyes. 'I can't do it! I can't stay with anyone! And it certainly can't be Carrot, because he doesn't even _like_ the undead...'

'You need someone who can accept you for who and what you are,' Sybil says.

'Samuel -- Captain Vimes -- he doesn't know about you and Lady Selachii, does he?'

'He can accept me for what he thinks I am,' Sybil says obdurately. 'He's happy. I'm happy.'

'Oh,' says Angua. 'Er... what were you saying about Havelock? Havelock _Vetinari_? The _Patrician_? What's _he_ got to do with this?'

'I'm surprised you need ask that. He's single. He's only got that flea-bitten mongrel of his to keep him company. The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork doesn't need a successor, but the nobles believe he should have a wife to bear him children, since most of them are still stuck firmly in the last century,' Sybil says. 'However, there's a good reason why he doesn't.'

'I'd think he'd be too busy being Patrician,' says Angua.

'Even the Patrician could manage if he so wished. But he doesn't want to. The reason being that his position is far too public to bring his personal life into it, which would undoubtedly be the case, especially if he took up with... with who he wants to.' Sybil stops abruptly, and although Angua gestures for her to go on, the subject, it seems, is closed.

'It's getting late,' Angua says. 'Or early.'

'You don't look tired.'

'I'm not, but I think Estelle is.' Sure enough, the bartender is eyeing them rather hopefully, and Sybil realises that they are the last ones left in the bar.

'Lady Ramkin, is the dragon show still on next weekend?' Estelle asks.

'Yes,' Sybil says. 'I'll let you know how it goes.'

'Will you still be wanting that whiskey for it?'

'I'll come for it after the wedding,' Sybil says. 'I don't intend to let Samuel see it.' Angua winces. 'Honesty,' Sybil adds as an aside to Angua, 'is one of my policies... at times.'

They walk outside together, stand a moment accustoming their eyes to the darkness. Calcite the troll nods goodnight to them and goes inside, presumably to bed.

'I could do with another drink,' Angua says, looking in the general direction of the Bucket. 'Do you want--'

'I don't want to go anywhere near that place you Watchmen see fit to drink in,' Sybil interrupts her. 'I will go home instead. You're welcome to come and keep me company, if you wish.'

'This wouldn't involve...' Angua is uncertain how to finish the sentence.

Sybil raises an eyebrow at her. 'Not unless you want it to.'

Angua doesn't reply, but laughs.

They begin walking towards Sybil's home, which will be empty of Sam Vimes at least, and at this early hour perhaps the friends and relations who seem intent on organising Sybil's wedding for her will have gone to bed. There is a cold wind blowing, and the sound of their footfalls seems to echo rather loudly.

Suddenly, making both of them jump, the cacophony that is Ankh-Morpork's clocks sounding begins, shockingly loud in the still of the morning. And at the same time as the clocks make their three chimes, the clouds part and the moon sails out from between them like a lady gliding onto the dance floor.

'Oh, _shit_,' says Angua, diving for the nearest dark alley. ''Scuse me...' The words trail off. There is a ripping sound. Moments later, a golden wolfhound (so she appears) trots out, looking rather sheepish and carrying a tattered shirt and pair of trousers in her mouth. Sybil takes the clothes, resists the urge to tell her to heel, and starts on her way again, Angua trotting at her side.

* * *

The lights are on in the front room; Willikins is asleep on the sofa. Sybil feels a pang of guilt at the thought that she has left him waiting for her, but manages to dismiss it.

'We can't sit in here,' she tells Angua, who shakes her head and sniffs the air. 'We can sit in my room.' She collects two glasses and a bottle of wine, then - reconsidering -- a second bottle. Angua seems to be laughing, tongue out, and precedes her up the stairs.

They settle down quite easily, Sybil perched on the edge of her bed, Angua -- changed back and dressed again -- on a comfortable armchair, a side-table between them with the wine and the glasses on it. Sybil feels another pang, thinking of how much she has drunk when she disapproves of Sam drinking, but there's nothing to be done for it. She feels warm and happy -- the jitters are fading.

'You never told me what you were doing in the Lady's anyway,' Angua says.

'What? Oh,' Sybil says. 'Just... talking to Ariadne. And... I'm nervous.'

'About the wedding?'

'Of course.'

'Sorry,' says Angua. 'I... don't know what to say. Are you nervous because you don't want to marry Captain Vimes?' She is sitting with her legs tucked underneath her; her hair is unfettered and she looks rather like one of the goddesses, just dropped by for a drink from Cori Celesti. Her face is flushed with drink, and Sybil wants to kiss her.

'I do want to marry him, if I must marry; it's just nerves, I suppose. You'd feel the same, I think, if you were to marry young Carrot,' Sybil says.

Angua stares into the depths of her glass. 'I don't think that will happen,' she says. She puts the glass down and clenches her hands into fists, then loosens them and exhales. 'I've only known him a little while. I don't know why it's so important that he respect... my kind. Me.'

Sybil reaches across the table, pats Angua's hand, leaves her hand atop Angua's for a moment. 'Living in Ankh-Morpork, he will hardly have a choice. First he will be forced to accept these things. Eventually, he will accept them of his own free will. You must be patient.'

Angua forces a smile and catches Sybil's hand in hers. 'I'm not known for patience,' she says.

'Neither was your mother,' Sybil says, thinking, remembering, hoping that Angua can't read her mind, hasn't somehow gained any fortune-telling from Mrs. Cake... although it's not precognition in this case, but recognition. Angua looks very much like her mother, the last time Sybil ever saw her; she thinks she knows what Angua would have looked like at nineteen, the same age that Serafine von Überwald was when they were at finishing school together. The age at which Sybil knew Serafine very well indeed.

And here she is with Serafine's daughter. She feels vaguely wrong about this fact. But Angua is looking across at her, an odd expression on her face, and Angua's hand is warm, clasping hers. 'Lady Ramkin?'

'If you're in my bedroom, no matter what the circumstances,' Sybil says, 'I should insist that you call me Sybil.'

'Sybil, then.' Angua smiles. 'Should we have another drink?'

'Why not?' Sybil asks.

The house is quiet at this time of night. Sybil has rarely been awake so late into the night, save for the odd four AM feed for the dragons, if she has a recently hatched nestful. This time she has no responsibilities until eight o'clock, no need to worry about anything, and so she has another drink.

Their conversation moves on from men, eventually, and turns to more mundane things: Angua's job and her enjoyment thereof; the dragons, of course; their mutual lack of fondness for their respective 'own kinds' -- Angua's family, in her case; the nobility, in Sybil's.

Four o'clock comes and goes, and Angua eventually stands up, swaying slightly.

'I really should--'

'Go?' Sybil says.

Angua doesn't. Instead, she steps carefully around the table, keeping her fingers on it to balance herself, then puts her hands out. Sybil takes them, lets herself be drawn to Angua.

'I can't make everything right,' says Angua, 'and I can't promise you anything. But we both have a space in our lives, right now, and we can do something about that.'

Sybil hardly hears the words, so entranced is she by Angua's serious eyes, staring -- no, gazing -- into her own. She studies the flecks of gold in them, then her gaze drops to Angua's mouth, tracing the pink curve of her lip (and in the back of her mind, comparing it to Angua's mother's). She stares until Angua's hands leave hers, slide around the back of her neck, and then Angua's lips are moving out of staring range and into kissing range, and Sybil lets herself forget memories and realise the _now_.

* * *

Sybil wakes up at eight o'clock, her head aching, and stirs a packet of powder into a glass of water, downing the lot. She puts on a skirt and blouse, making a mental note to pick up last night's clothes before her maid comes in and wonders what they are doing on the floor -- or in one case, the lampshade -- and looks at herself in the mirror. She looks a little flushed still, and closer examination reveals a small bruise on her collarbone in the shape of a human bite mark. It doesn't seem to have broken the skin, however; probably not a problem in any case.

She remembers one thing she said to Angua the previous night (morning?), about Sam's powers of observation, and leans over the bed. There is no smell of perfume, nor anything else, but she picks three ash-blonde hairs off the pillow, twirling them absently around her fingers before depositing them into the waste-paper basket. It is unlikely that the hairs would have remained there until Samuel saw the inside of her bedroom again, but Sybil likes to be safe. It is a trick she has learned through years of working with dragons.

The dragons are waiting when she enters the stable, wearing her leather apron and other assorted paraphernalia. She clangs their buckets together, ignoring the _you're-late-where-have-you-been?_ look from one of the, as Samuel amusingly calls them, Interchangeable Emmas. Gouts of fire greet her as she pours feed into troughs, and once feeding time is done she grabs the muck rake and begins energetically working at the smelly task. More than one person comments on her enthusiasm, her drive, and Sybil just smiles.

It is time to once again put aside the past and return to the present, and Sybil Ramkin has an amazing capacity to focus on the _now_.

But sometimes, just sometimes, the past clings very strongly, whether it is the distance past of two girls entering young-lady-hood together, or the recent past of the night before, of a final farewell to the way things were and the turning to the way things must be.

* * *

Angua wakes up. It is almost noon, she is in her own bed at Mrs. Cake's, and someone is knocking on her door.


End file.
